Language Acquisition and Instructional Practices
Language Acquisition and Instructional Practices tests how second languages are learned and how French should be taught. Expect questions on second-language acquisition theory, the ACTFL proficiency framework and three communicative modes, the World-Readiness Standards (the five Cs), backward design, task-based and content-based instruction, scaffolding, target-language use, and differentiation.
Core frameworks
- Krashen: comprehensible input (i+1), the affective filter, and a distinction between acquisition and learning. Swain adds comprehensible output; Long emphasizes interaction and negotiation of meaning.
- ACTFL modes: interpretive (listening/reading), interpersonal (spontaneous two-way), presentational (prepared one-way). These are modes of communication, not the older four skills.
- Five Cs: Communication, Cultures, Connections, Comparisons, Communities.
- Backward design (Wiggins and McTighe): identify desired results, then evidence, then learning activities. The Integrated Performance Assessment follows this logic with an interpretive-to-interpersonal-to-presentational sequence.
- Scaffolding: modeling, visuals, sentence frames, and gradual release, not word-by-word translation.
Worked example
You plan a unit on a market. Which sequence best reflects the modes? Reasoning: students first listen to a vendor-customer exchange and identify prices and requests (interpretive); then they bargain in pairs toward a task goal (interpersonal); finally they write a market advertisement or record a vendor pitch (presentational). A worksheet matching vegetables to pictures is vocabulary practice, not a communicative task, so it cannot anchor the unit.
Traps that cost marks
- Calling grammar drills communicative because students speak; communication requires a purpose and an information gap.
- Confusing proficiency (what a learner can do across contexts) with performance (what they do in a familiar task).
- Overusing English for management, which reduces input without improving comprehension.
- Teaching culture as trivia rather than as products, practices, and perspectives.
- Writing objectives as activities (students will practice...) instead of observable outcomes.